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Originally published 2026-09-18

Who raised, who shipped, who's hiring: Silicon Valley AI, week of September 18

Six raises, four launches, three moves, plus 12 accelerators.

AI 20/20 | THE SCOREBOARD | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 18, 2026

Image from the 2026-09-18 AI 20/20 issue

Happy Friday. Twenty names from September 11 to 17, read at the source, plus 12 accelerators sorted by deadline, the first on October 4. The deadlines are the part to forward.

RAISED

  1. Temporal, $550 million Series E at a $12.55 billion valuation, led by Lightspeed. Open-source software that keeps long-running applications and AI agents working through failures until the job finishes. Temporal, September 14 

  2. Factory, $200 million at a $5 billion valuation, backed by Blackstone, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia and Insight Partners. AI agents that build, test and maintain enterprise software. Factory, September 15 

  3. Noetive, out of stealth with a $41 million seed led by Eclipse. AI and sensing hardware that learns how factories, logistics and construction sites actually run. PR Newswire, September 16 

  4. TypeSafe AI, out of stealth with a $40 million seed led by DCVC. Models that return structured decisions software can act on, in place of chat text. Business Wire, September 15 

  5. Kastle, $24 million Series A led by Insight Partners. AI agents that run consumer-lending operations inside a bank's existing systems. PR Newswire, September 17 

  6. Aristotle, $5 million seed led by True Ventures. A voice-first AI tutor for students 13 to 18. PR Newswire, September 16

LAUNCHED

  1. Salesforce inside Claude, September 15. Sales teams can pull Salesforce data and take Salesforce actions from Claude, with 37 built-in sales skills from prospecting to pipeline cleanup. In beta for all Salesforce customers. Salesforce 

  2. Claude for Small Business, September 15. 43 ready workflows, including after-hours lead replies, proposals and month-end close, plus 27 new connections to Shopify, Stripe, Square, Xero, Gusto and others. Included on every paid Claude plan. Anthropic 

  3. Mercury Books, September 16. Accounting built into Mercury's business banking: AI sorts and reconciles transactions as they happen, and owners edit the books by asking in plain English. Free through December 31 for customers who sign up by December 1, then $35 a month. Mercury 

  4. Penguin Ai's Intelligent RCM, September 11. Checks every insurance claim before it goes out, works denials and appeals, and flags underpayments with the evidence and the dollars at stake. A person makes the final call. From Palo Alto. PR Newswire

HIRING

Open sales and go-to-market seats at Bay Area companies selling AI into ordinary businesses, as listed on September 17. Forward this to the person who should have one.

  1. Campfire, Account Executive, Non Tech Vertical, San Francisco, on site. AI accounting for mid-size finance teams; this seat sells to professional services, healthcare, nonprofits and home services. Ashby 

  2. Commure (Mountain View), Enterprise Account Executive, East Coast, remote from New York. AI for clinical notes, patient tasks and insurance claims at healthcare providers. Ashby 

  3. Decagon (San Francisco), Director of Solutions Engineering, Enterprise East, New York, on site. AI customer-service agents for consumer brands and fintechs. Ashby 

  4. Writer, Enterprise Account Executive (West), San Francisco, hybrid. A platform large companies use to build AI agents on their own data. Ashby 

  5. Candid Health (San Francisco), Account Executive, Accelerated Path, remote in the US. AI medical billing that gets providers paid by insurers; the posting welcomes people who have not sold before. Ashby 

  6. Hyperbound, Enterprise Account Executive, San Francisco, on site. AI practice calls, call scoring and coaching for sales teams. Ashby 

  7. Covera, Founding GTM and Account Executive, San Francisco. AI agents that handle intake, quoting, claims and collections for insurance brokers; listed at $60K to $100K. YC

MOVED

  1. OpenAI bought Glass Imaging, the Los Altos startup that uses AI to sharpen smartphone camera images, in a deal reportedly worth more than $300 million, per The Wall Street Journal. Neither company has confirmed it. TechCrunch, September 14

  2. Google completed its deal for Mechanize, the San Francisco AI agents startup. Co-founder Tamay Besiroglu and more than a dozen staff now work at Google DeepMind. Terms were not disclosed. Business Insider, September 11 

  3. fal acquired Lucent, a platform where an AI agent makes creative and ad assets; Lucent's two co-founders join fal. Terms were not disclosed. PR Newswire, September 14

ACCELERATORS, BY DEADLINE

Closing soon

  1. PearX (Pear VC), $500K to $2M depending on stage, 12 weeks. Winter 2027 applications close October 4. Pear VC 

  2. 500 Global Flagship, $150K for about 6%, less a $37,500 program fee, so $112,500 lands. Four months, in person, Silicon Valley. The page says Batch 36 applications close October 11. 500 Global 

  3. Activate, a two-year fellowship for scientists founding hard-tech companies: a $100K yearly living stipend plus $100K for R&D. Berkeley is one of its sites. Cohort 2027 closes October 30 at noon Pacific. Activate 

  4. Y Combinator, $500K: $125K for 7%, plus $375K on an uncapped MFN SAFE. Winter 2027 closes November 2 at 8 PM Pacific. YC 

  5. Techstars, $220K: $200K on an uncapped MFN SAFE plus $20K for 5%. Asia-Pacific programs pay $120K. Eight programs close November 18. Techstars

Apply any time

  1. a16z speedrun, up to $1M: $500K for 10%, plus $500K in your next round within 18 months. Late applications roll to the next cohort, late January 2027 in San Francisco. speedrun 

  2. SOSV HAX, hard tech, up to $550K pre-seed and a six-month residency in Newark, New Jersey. HAX 

  3. SOSV SF and SOSV NY, the programs called IndieBio until March. SF takes all deep tech; NY centers on healthcare and engineering biology. Up to $550K. SOSV 

  4. NVIDIA Inception, free, no equity, no cohort: cloud credits, hardware and software discounts, investor introductions. For companies under 10 years old. NVIDIA 

  5. Microsoft for Startups, up to $150K in Azure credits, released in tiers as usage grows. Credits, not a check. Microsoft 

  6. AI Fund, Andrew Ng's venture studio in Mountain View. Build inside it for 12 weeks, paid $10K a month; a company that works gets $500K to $1M in pre-seed capital. AI Fund 

  7. Greentown Labs, climate and energy. A nonprofit incubator in Somerville and Houston that you join as a member. It invests nothing and takes no equity. Greentown

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